by K Fletcher

The Holiday Approach

First, a mention on a fun lesson we had with one of our favorite investigators. We discussed Alma 24 and the importance of burying our swords (or rather, burying those things with which we fight against God). There is always something that we are fighting with and piece by piece we need to bury those things and not dig them up, even when armies combine against us. 
So we teach this, and then we plan on burying our swords. So last P-Day I spend some time and made these super cool swords:
And we take them over, and everyone ooh's and aah's, and writes what they want to give up and then what do we do? We rip those swords up and bury them! They were appalled! the youngest one held her sword back and said, "It's pretty!!" 

That's the point though, isn't it? We all have our favorite sins, the ones that are shiny and pretty and we don't want to give up. But eventually we have to give them all up to God. Bury 'em deep.

And the time has come for cold weather and thick jackets! Here we are on our daily walk in the park with a heavy coating of frost on the ground. Wish us luck!
Also, Thanksgiving was my year mark! And I have three things to share here:
First of all, I received an INCREDIBLE package from my parents! 
They gave me everything from hot chocolate to mangoes, to thin mints, to no-bake cookies, to protein powder for shakes, to stickers, to a BEAUTIFUL wooden bracelet from my Dad to a necklace I now wear basically every day, to my personal favorite: Pictures of all of my friends and family. :) Oh, how I have missed them. 

It was better than Christmas.

And we hadn't even started Thanksgiving yet! So on Thanksgiving (same day) we had a few lessons with investigators (Spanish speaking people don't really celebrate it, aside from a random day off of work) and then we had TWO Thanksgiving dinners! The first was with a member family: The Smiths. We brought a blueberry lemon pie and while my camera was dead and Hermana Limb forgot hers, we have only this one documented picture of the whole event: 
We then went to a Thanksgiving dinner with a non-member, Pat, from Spanish class. It was me and Hermana Limb in a house with 20 black people. It was great! We loved it! I love black people! We played cards and ate food, and for some reason NO ONE eats pie here for Thanksgiving. Cake. What is cake? Not Thanksgiving food. So we brought our own :) And Pat's son came to church on Sunday!

And the crowning story of this week was going to iHop for my 1 year celebration. We stuffed ourselves silly with pancakes and bacon:
But that's not the best part of the story. Let me start from the beginning:
We walk in and the greeter says, "I'm going to give you a special waiter. I hope you like someone who talks!" So we sit down and a man in his mid-twenties approaches and you can tell he is the flirty type. Then he sees our nametags and says he knows a bit of Spanish and starts to read it and realizes we are from a church. After getting our drinks he tells us the people in the back are making fun of him because he can't flirt with us. In his own words, "They are basically nuns!"
Well, he brought up religion first so we start talking. He brings out the bible in his pocket and we talk about organized religion and our personal worship. We ask him about how common sense works with religion and keep telling him he would make a great missionary.

He refutes these claims and we find out a bit about his background, but that he has changed and repented and we say, "Because of your experiences you can help people you couldn't have helped before. You are a missionary now."

He still seems skeptical, but as time progresses, I decide to ask him my favorite question. "What does God want from you right now in your life?" We tell him to think about it, that we can't answer it, but he should.

After a bit he answers the question. It was pretty profound and the spirit was present. 

At the end of the meal, we gave him a big tip. He was a great waiter and we're missionaries. He asked us how long we were going to be in town. With transfers coming up we replied, "We don't know." 

And before we can ask, he bends down, rips out a piece of paper from his pad and writes down his number. He says, as he is writing, "I don't normally do this. I'm the one that gets numbers. I don't give out my number, especially for this reason, but here it is." And he gives us his number.

At the end I tell him, "We want to give you something. We don't believe in forcing our religion on people so you don't have to take it, but it's a gift if you want it." And he accepts a Book of Mormon.

It was one of the best moments on my mission.
Look for the miracles, everyone.
Con Amor,
Hermana Fletcher


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